


A Monkey is Born in the South of France

by Mad_Max



Series: Les 400 Coups [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: French, graphic childbirth, hair baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 13:58:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Max/pseuds/Mad_Max
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire's birth was less than ideal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Monkey is Born in the South of France

**Author's Note:**

> Beginning of a canon-era exploration of Grantaire's life through assorted drabbles. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

Montauban, 1803

A monkey is born in the south of France.

He is born backwards and five weeks early, a long, slender, writhing pair of legs attached to a flat bottom that cause his grandmother to cry out, certain that the child is deformed. At this moment, his exit strategy seems to fail him and he comes to a halt, half of one leg and another foot hanging desperately onto the new world, the rest stuck in the old. His mother screams for him, his own voice drowning in the pool of fluid that he has occupied for the past seven months and three weeks.

It is her screams that alert Plaisance, napping quietly on a corner of the bed in the room beyond, her thumb clenched firmly between her bottom teeth and her harelip.  “Maman!” Springing to her feet, Plaisance enters the master bedroom in a cloud of tangled, blond hair speckled with the blue of her wide eyes. She sees her grandmother in a heap of skirt, clutching at her wrinkled cheeks. Her mother prone on the white bedsheets, cheeks red and glistening with sweat. Two small feet; the child that she has been patiently awaiting for what has felt like years.

Plaisance clears the room in two strides. Plants herself firmly before her grandmother. Studies the situation with quiet calm.

The hands that she lifts to gently entwine the baby’s legs are small and pale, as delicate as a hummingbird’s and excruciatingly gentle as she begins to pull. She has waited for this baby for months, sang to it through the thin veil of skin stretched across her mother’s stomach, prayed for it, spoken with it into the dark, the still of the night from her corner of the bed. As tenderly as with her favourite ragdoll - Lucinde - she tugs the slender limbs free, the little belly deflating and inflating rapidly, cradling the fragile neck, the crooked head.

With soft croons of “come, baby, pshhh, baby”, she settles back onto her haunches and peers down into the wrinkled face cradled carefully between her arms. This creature is not of the cheerful, fat, rosy-cheeked sort like her sister Zéphyrine, who is almost quite beautiful and everyone’s darling. But, he is not deformed. Just very hairy.

Incredibly hairy. His grandmother, upon seeing him, withdraws with a shriek and a hand upon her heart - “Mon Dieu, of all the afflictions!”

His father, entering sometime after lunch, squints down at him with a thoughtful frown and says dryly, “My dear, you have given birth to a monkey.”

He remains unnamed. No one is quite certain whether it would be wise to christen a shade clinging to the boundaries between life and death.

Plaisance alone is delighted.

The baby pressed firmly into the crook of her arm, she sits in the corner, humming absently as her sister Victorine makes an entrance and recoils with a wrinkled nose.

“Papa,” says Victorine gravely.

“My darling?”

She points to the mass of fuzzy, black hair. “Papa, shall he be allowed into church with all that hair?”

Papa coughs, bites his lips, turns aside. “I should rather think so.”

“But Papa - ”

In the corner, the grandmother, her arms crossed: “It is a bad omen, such a fur on a babe.”

“Nonsense.” - the Father.

The grandmother is not to be dissuaded. She has seen her fair share of ugly children, has given birth to the majority of them and helped to birth the eight her daughter has brought into the world, one after the other, until this last, singular occurrence; this child who slipped into the world as backwards and out-of-place as a right shoe on a left foot.  “But, don’t ask me,” she pants, paling. “I have birthed enough children, I ought to know!”

“Well.” The Father is, if possible, even more stubborn than she. “If he does not shed his fur within the next few months, we shall at least never have to worry about hiring a watchdog.”

Plaisance, in her corner, perks up suddenly, having caught only half of this final addition from her father. Her eyes widen. Beaming, she chirps, “Oh! Are we to have a doggy?”

The baby, his hair, his manner, his frail body and fragile soul become a moot point after that. As the last of eight children, he fails to impress anyone with his presence, is forgotten, consigned to the patient arms of Plaisance, to her crooning and kissing and the lullaby she breathes into his ears at all hours of the day:

“ _Fais dodo, ‘Colas mon p’tit frère,_

_fais dodo, t’auras du lolo!_

_Maman est en haut, qui fait d’gâteaux._

_Papa est en bas, qui fait du choc’lat._

_Fais dodo, ‘Colas mon p’tit frère,_

_fais dodo, t’auras du lolo_!”

  
At some point, the song attaches itself to his identity, binds itself to his soul. From his mother, he receives his life, of which he is only vaguely aware. From his father, the occasional glance and pat on the head. But, from Plaisance, ever-gentle, as tender as a mother and the most patient of teachers, he learns his numbers, his first words, the warmth of an embrace, the flutter of a song trapped in his chest, implanted there by her soft voice. From Plaisance, he learns to love, and he has his name - Nicolas.  

**Author's Note:**

> The song is:
> 
> Go to sleep, Colas, my little brother  
> Go to sleep, you shall have milk  
> Mama is upstairs making cakes  
> Papa is downstairs making chocolate  
> Go to sleep, Colas, my little brother  
> Go to sleep, you shall have milk


End file.
